The Brookhaven leader., 1887-01-27
THE HOG m WINTER.
low Swine should BE Housed and Fe
During the Cold Months.

THE HOG m WINTER.
low Swine should BE Housed and FED
During the Cold Months.
There is a class Of writers whose
writings gives the inference that il we
will keep the hog in a closely heated
room all winter there would be very
little need of feeding the animal. They
seem to intimate that profitable pork
production depends not so much upon
The price of feed a it does upon the
price of base-burners and fuel. At all
events. they are eternally telling us to
keep the hog in warm quarters, and in
forming us that exposure to the cold
means loss of heat and consequently
an additional expenditure for food.
Now. nobody will advocate an unneces-
sarv exposure of swine or any other
class Of animals. They should always
have clean. comfortable quarters; but
a greater mistake than to attempt to
keep swine in a high temperature can
not he committed in connection with
swine husbandry. The hog is
naturally an animal Of high tenn
perature when undergoing the process
of fattcning. So far as suffering is
concerned, the fat hog can stand very
low degree of temperature if dry; and,
To add to it, internal heat is TO pro
ducc injury But there can be no dam
ger Of doing this in winter, some may
think. Yes. there is. The house may
he 50 close and unventilated as to pro-
ducc too high Il degree of heat; or,
what j. more common, the hogs may
be permitted to huddle together and
heat themselves almost to the cooking
coint. This j. the cause of a great deal
of trouble among swine, and we are
frequently compelled to tell swine breed
crs who complain of sickness among
their hogs to rout them out and keep
tn On from budding together. If we
could always have our own way in the
matter we would never have a higher
temperature than forty-six degrees in
which To fattcn hogs. Certainly in
winter time the temperature can be
kept As low as that, unless their quay
tiers are abominable i'll construction.
The matter Of cleanliness should be
carefully looked after. The hog Is not
near 20 dirty an animal as some people
would have us believe, and if it was. so
much more the need of our striving to
make him clcanly. Swine will eat al
most any thing, it is true; but 30 will
fowl. The hog. however will show his
preference for clean food and a clean
place to feed if it is given an oppor-
unity. The winter quarters of some
logs are an abominable disgrace. They
sleep in filth. they eat in filth, and il
they do not happen to die before they
are rot into market the pork produced
mdrr such circumstances can not be OF
he best quality. The animal enjoys
Il clean floor to feed upon and a clean
bed to sleep in, and ENJOYMENT always
improves thrift. Whenever an animal
enjoys It's surroundings it will always
do the best it can do.
The food of the tattening hog will
consist mostly Of corn, the great fat
producing food of the country; and il
the animal has been fed up to the time
If beginning the fattening process for
Development of hone and muscle, it
will usually stand even a steady and ex-
.lusivc diet until it is ready for market
without much danger But if it has
not been thus developed it may break
Town at any time. Wemust not forget
that fattcning is a violence to natural
laws. 1t is the creation of something
that beyond a certain limit is not only
Of no use to the animal system, but a
detl'imcnt to it. Suppose it were pos
>iblc to fatten human being as we
fatten swine, and we should do it,
what would be the result? We should
rndanger the life. We should load all
the organs with something that would
not benefit them, but would interfere
with the full performance of their
functions. The same is true though
perhaps To "A less cXtent-with an ami
nal that we make so excessively fat as
we do the hog. And now if the hog is
weak to begin with, if its bones and its
muscles are not developed as nature
intended them to be, we simply add to
the imperfect condition of the system
when we push its development on its
least important side. But while the
hoe that has been developed as we have
indicated may get through on an ex-
elusive corn diet, it is not well to risk
it, Il should be rule of feeding that
no animal should be confined to corn
ut any time or under any circum-
stances. If the hog gets nothing but
corn it will sooner or later be troubled
with costivenesS, with all the evils that
such state insurcs If fed every day
Il little of the bone and muscle forming
foods. such as middlingS, oil meal, etc,
its digestive machinery will be kept in
order, and beside the animal will be
kept growing.
If hogs are kept, as we keep them,
until the second year, the winter food
needs to be largely of the bone and
muscle-folming varieties, They can be
kept growing upon no other kind OF
food. Corn will furnish little for bone
and muscle building. In II recent letter
from Kansas, noticing the prevalence of
hog disease, the trouble was attributed
by the writer to too much corn. He
said corn was so plenty that the hogs
were fed upon it from pighood to ma
turity, and that even the sows with pigs